


Bonding

by Higgystar



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, could be read as rickyl if you want, needed some fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higgystar/pseuds/Higgystar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick finds it hard to bond with Judith for a long time. Until Daryl helps out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonding

At first Rick finds it difficult to bond with the new baby. Between the grief and pure fury that rages through him over the loss of Lori and the sudden need to find a reason for it all, he doesn’t really spend as much time with her as he should. He doesn’t hold her, he doesn’t feed her, he doesn’t even ask anyone if she is healthy because his mind is so focussed on chasing the ghosts that may or may not give him some answers to the questions that buzz about his head. Rick knows they are not there until he’s not so sure anymore and clinging on to a broken phone like it’s the only way out of this blood stained mess he’s gotten them all into.

There is no instant bond formed between himself and the child like there was when Carl had been born. When he’d first held his son in the sterile smelling hospital with an exhausted and still recovering Lori beside him something had bloomed within his chest and never faded since. It was as if they’d been joined by something unbreakable and he knew that he would love the tiny soul he held without question. He’d been so unsure with his firstborn, both he and Lori figuring it out together, making mistakes, worrying over nothing and bringing up Carl to be the strong kid that stood before him today.

Now she was gone. Leaving him with a newborn baby, bloodstained hands and the knowledge that this was all his doing. They needed him right now in the prison, they needed his leadership and his protection, but most of all they needed him stable. Rick isn’t sure if he should have held her right then, but he had and he’d cradled her head, kept her close and let her whine in his arms as a father should. But there was no instant bond as there had been with Carl and though he knew he would love her, he wasn’t sure if he could raise her.

He does his part, he holds the baby when others offer her to him, he allows Carl to name her Judith and he lets the tiny, fragile form sleep in a box in his cell. But he doesn’t care for her, the others do that. Beth steps into a role she’d never been through before and feeds her, Carol and Hershel teach everyone else the basics of how to hold her, how to change her and care for her properly. They give the lessons that he should have been teaching and no one even bothers asking why he’s not a part of it all.

Maybe it’s because it was easier to think of Judith as a thing and not a person. Things were easier to protect, if she wasn’t another life on his hands then he couldn’t fail her and besides, it’s not like she was going to remember any of this. Lori would have scolded him and called him out on his choices, but everyone else lets his chase his ghosts and make his phone calls to nowhere until he’s ready to move on.

It’s not until Woodbury is overthrown, the survivors join their group and he’s sure everyone is safe that he starts to actually care about the baby properly. Even when he feels more stable and has the farm and Carl to focus on he still can’t suite bring himself to care for her as he knows he should. It’s not like she was alone or abandoned, she had the rest of his family to look after her and she wasn’t going notice if he wasn’t there for her. But it grates on his soul and when he thinks of Lori he knows, he just knows that this is not what she would have wanted.

It takes time to get there and he watches her, he still holds her but it’s not until Judith is a few months old that he really sees her. She’s not a tiny baby anymore, and though she is still dependant on everyone else to help her survive she’s also becoming her own person. He sees her begin to smile, he notices when she reaches for certain people to hold her and he knows that right now he needs to make the effort or he’ll forever be nothing more than a caregiver to her.

He’s felt so hollow about her presence that he’s not sure where to begin with it all so instead he spends a while just watching and observing, trying to remember how to stop thinking so much and be there for a baby who was no more than a few months old. Everyone else notices but they don’t talk about it out loud, except for Hershel pushing in his usual kind and wise way. Judith had no idea about any of it, she’s merely happy to be held, to be fed and changed and played with when she wants it.

So Rick spends some time watching her with the others until he feels ready to take that step from being a father in anything other than name only.

It never surprised him that Daryl was good with kids. The others had been stunned to see it at first, but he’d never worried about it. He can recall back before everything when Lori had been unsure of leaving Carl under Daryl’s eye when they had chores to do, but he’d never seen what made her so wary. Daryl and Carl got along great and he knew it would be no different with his new baby either.

Carl had spoken about it before, just offhandedly mentioning that he wanted to hang out with Daryl and help the hunter with his chores. When Rick had questioned it all he’d gotten was a shrug and Carl sating how the other man was ‘cool to hang out with’ and he’d been able to read between the lines. Daryl didn’t speak down to Carl at all. At no point had he ever seen the man tell Carl he couldn’t do something because of his age or speak to him any different to how he spoke to the adults. Sure maybe Rick wasn’t too keen on Carl copying Daryl’s bad language, but he’d seen the way his son smiled at being allowed to hear it.

Daryl was a natural with children, and it didn’t seem to matter what age they were either. He knew the other man had done so much for his daughter when she had been born. Daryl had not only gone to get the formula for her, but he’d given her the first feed, he’d hushed her and soothed her in the sudden new world she found herself in and kept her alive. Rick had thanked him, of course he had because what else could he do when he hadn’t been able to do it himself? And Daryl had merely shrugged and seen it as nothing more than what they did.

The other man was a survivor and he’d not only do what needed to be done to keep himself alive, but what he had to do to keep his family surviving also. Rick was grateful for that in more ways than he could say. So he watches as Daryl transitions between butchering a freshly caught deer with grit teeth and a sharp blade, to cradling his daughter and letting her drool over his shoulder without a worry. To some it would seem he was two different men, to Rick it’s just seeing two sides of the same coin.

The others are eating outside in their self made canteen, filling themselves on fresh meat and chatting over everything and nothing together as a group whilst Daryl sits inside the cell block, sheltered from the sun and the company as he sits with his daughter. Beside them on the floor is a plastic plate with cut up portions of various foodstuffs, some canned goods along with tiny cuts of meat for Judith to pick through as she wished.

Rick watches them both, leaning on the entrance of the cellblock as Daryl talks to her, seemingly uncaring if he was understood and enjoying the babbles he receives back from the girl. They play together, using nothing more than plastic cups and a few wooden blocks to build a tower that Judith then delights in smashing down. Every time Daryl will gasp in shock, claim she was a monster and reduce Judith to a fit of giggles until he was building it up again. It’s repetitive, it’s nothing in the grand scheme of things, but Rick enjoys watching all the same.

Judith is crawling now in-between shuffling on her rear about the place. She seems to enjoy the freedom the new movements give her and delights in moving between the plate of finger food and grabbing the cups Daryl is restacking. Every so often she’ll eat something, sitting for a while and gnashing her few teeth together on a piece of food before joining back in the game, ever so eager not to miss a thing even if Daryl waits for her to swallow before continuing.

It’s peaceful and just for a moment Rick doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the world when they could actually afford to have moments like this. He takes advantage of the lack of people and heads over, footfalls heavy to let his presence be known even if he’s aware that Daryl would hear him anyway. Judith seems too enthralled in chewing on a plastic cup to notice him, but Daryl smirks his way. “Hey Lil Asskicker, look who’s here.”

He nods, he feels stupid and he doesn’t know what to say to his daughter when she wouldn’t understand a damned thing he said. Instead he joins them on the ground, folding his legs beneath him and picking up a stray cup to fidget with. “How’s she doing?” He asks Daryl, because that was easier to start with, to act as if she wasn’t even there.

“Well enough.” Daryl grunts, half sprawled on the floor to get to Judith’s level and watching carefully as the girl picks at her food. “Ever need anything smashed to pieces and she’s your girl.”

Again he nods, he watches and he doesn’t know where he sits right now. Daryl is relaxed, unphased by his presence or his awkwardness and he has no idea how the hell the other man is comfortable in any situation life throws at him. They sit and watch in silence as Judith eats, drooling over herself and her fingers, covered in food and uncaring as she eats her fill.

When his daughter grabs a piece of meat in her chubby fist and shuffles over to Daryl he watches with a smile as she offers him the food with a babble, practically shoving her fist into Daryl’s mouth until he takes it. “Mm, extra drool, just the way I like it.” Daryl swallows it obediently though, if only because his daughter smiles brightly when he does so. “Least she’s good at sharing though right?”

“Yeah.” Rick finds himself nodding again, feeling that hollowness creep up inside of himself when his daughter seems more than happy to give all of her attention to Daryl instead of him. It’s not her fault, who was he to blame a baby for not going to someone who was practically a stranger to her? He was the one who hadn’t been there for her, the one who had ignored her existence because it was easier to chase after the memory of Lori than to deal with a new baby.

“She’s gonna be alright you know?” Daryl tells him and again he sounds so damned certain that Rick wonders if the world will ensure it happens so not to prove Daryl wrong. “I mean heck with Carl as her older brother and you as her dad, girl’s gonna be safe as houses.” It’s meant as a compliment, as a way to make him stop brooding and start smiling again, but instead it just makes the distance between himself and his daughter seem even more perilous to cross.

Judith burbles, crawls into the space between them and begins hitting a couple of cups together as if they would stack themselves. “I haven’t exactly been much of a father to her lately Daryl.” He admits and watches as Daryl ignores Judith’s attempts at building and instead focuses on him.

“So? You wanna fix it now’s the time.” Because they both knew there was no time anymore and he hates himself for forgetting. He’d waited and waited and waited with Lori, held a grudge, kept himself away from her and where had that gotten him? Judith didn’t deserve that treatment. Not ever. “She ain’t gonna turn you away.” He shrugs and Judith throws a cup in Daryl’s direction.

Rick smirks at her attitude and wonders if she’s been spending maybe a little too much time with the other man. Reaching out he grabs the cup, sets it down gently before adding another beside it and one on top. “You sound so certain she’s not going to start crying the second I try to hold her.” Judith watches him, quite, wary and not tossing another cup in his direction or making any move to destroy his creation. He feels left out.

“She’s a baby.” Daryl growls, gesturing to her as if Rick hadn’t noticed and there’s a flare of that temper that Daryl’s been able to keep under control lately. But this brings it out in him, not danger, not a threat from the outside world, but the thought of Rick giving up on his daughter. Rick wonders if he should feel so flattered at that. “It ain’t exactly complicated to get her to like you. Shit I stood on her hand the other day and you don’t see her giving a shit or being mad at me or nothin’.”

“You stood on her hand?” He asks and the temper is gone, replaced with a quick shrug and a lowered voice as Daryl explains to him.

“Ain’t nothing broken, I didn’t even have any boots on so quit panicking and play with your daughter.”

It’s been years since he’s been around a baby. Though he’s fairly sure he remembers how to change a diaper if he needed to and how to mix up formula he was still rusty when it came to playing. What sort of things did she like? Was he going to make an idiot of himself? “What if she doesn’t want to play with me?” He asks and adds another layer of cups to the slowly growing tower.

“Sweet Jesus this ain’t rocket science Rick.” Daryl sighs, running his fingers through his hair before he sits up, giving him space, moving to lean against the wall and away from Judith to give him a chance. It’s subtle, but it helps. “She’s a baby, poke her nose, blow raspberries on her stomach, she can crawl now so chase her a little, that makes her squeal.” The other man shrugs to him and Rick knows that’s about as much advice as he could ask for from Daryl right now.

So he ignores the thoughts of looking like a fool and letting her down, or Lori watching him with disgust as he failed to give their daughter the love he should have given her in her final months on this earth. “Hey Judy.” He shifts into her field of vision, ignores the months he’d ignored her and tries to start all over again. Rick takes a hand and smashes down the carefully constructed tower of cups in front of her.

Judith lets out a shriek of laughter and just like that he knows that he’s forgiven.

As if something inside of himself has switched on or filled up or been breached, he ignores the rest of the world and plays with his daughter. She’s adorable, loud and alive when he grabs her, wriggling up her summer dress to press his face to her warm stomach and blow raspberries over her skin. Judith screams in delight, she wriggles in his hands and presses against his warmth in return. Not once does she glance back to Daryl and for a moment he is as much her world as she is his.

They play, he crawls on the floor uncaring of ripping clothing or getting dirty, following her as she crawls away ahead of him, snatching her up and tickling her until she’s hiccupping on every breath. Then he lets her go and she’s watching him, daring him to catch her and do it all over again. So he does, pressing kisses to her head, running fingers down her sides and feeling the same swell of love and adoration he’d felt when he’d held Carl for the first time.

There’s another set of footsteps coming into the cellblock but he doesn’t care to look up, not even when someone laughs at him and moves to stand over them both. “What’re you doing?” Carl asks, the hat low over his eyes, a smile on his face and looking a mix of lost and delighted. Rick can’t answer, not when he’s too busy letting Judith feed him some scraps from the plate.

“Watching your dad make an ass out of himself.” Daryl replies and for a while Rick thought the man would have left him to it, but he’s grateful that he’s still here. “Wanna join?” He asks his son and Rick can only grin harder when his son actually laughs properly for the first time in a long time. It makes him feel alive, it makes him feel hope and like there really is a future ahead of them.

“Sure.” Carl slumps down besides Daryl, tipping his hat back and watching him roll around on the floor with Judith like a fool. But he doesn’t feel foolish. There’s no shame, no awkward worry or fear left within Rick as he plays with his daughter, building more cup towers up for her to smash down and grinning when Daryl and Carl both join in to appease Judith’s need for attention.

It’s not much. Really in the scheme of things it’s nothing more than a way to spend the time between finding more food and weapons and checking the perimeter of walkers. Their world isn’t safe or secure, they’re living day to day and never sure of what the future holds for them but Rick finds himself not caring about all of that as they all sit on the floor of the cell block together. Carl places the hat on Judith’s head, Daryl and he build another tower of cups and blocks for his daughter to plough through in a fit of giggles and Rick knows what to focus on.

For the first time since Lori’s passing he feels complete again.


End file.
